Help:Manual of Style
Purpose DF wiki is here to provide information on the Dresden Files series; as such this manual of style is intended to provide a way to organize said information in an ordered and homogeneous way. If something is not covered by the manual, editors are welcome to use their judgement and are encouraged to raise the point with admins. Editors are also encouraged to voice their doubt and disagreements with the manual. If their points meet approval from other editors and admins, they'll make their way in the manual of style. Language American english is the language of the Dresden files, therefore it will be the language of this wiki. Even though both past and present tense are currently used in many pages without consideration for consistency, present tense is to be preferred over past tens, so editors are encouraged to convert past to present, unless there's a good reason not to: i.e. a character is dead or an incident has happened before the beginning of the series - "Restoration of Faith". Pages Information present in the book should be summarized succinctly and clearly in many pages, which can be of various different types, with different layouts for each type. Roughly speaking, there are three kinds of pages: 1) describing story, 2) describing characters, 3) describing everything else. Story pages, such as Storm Front, typically include: * a mandatory short lede, giving information about the title, publication information, number of chapters. is to be included here, as complete as possible. References may be required. * a non-mandatory Blurb section, proposing the blurb's content. References are not required. * a Plot section, describing succinctly the novel's or story's plot. References are not required. * for novels, a plot points introduced section, summarizing what of importance happens in the novel. References are not required. * an Other media section, presenting what graphic novels, audiobooks, electronic media are available. References are not required. * a non mandatory Trivia section. Notes and miscellanea should be included here. References, if available, should be to outside sources. * a Notes section, if needed. It will be explained later. * a References section, almost always needed. It will be explained later. * a See also section, with links to pages relevant but not previously piped. * an External links section, with links to external pages relevant to the topic. Each page should be self-contained, and must avoid referring to future stories; only exception being the "followed by" line of the infobox. However, it is up to the judgement of the editor to include a plot point that will be relevant later on in the series, and influences future events. Mandatory categorization is Books. Character pages, such as Harry Dresden, describe what is known about characters, and typically include: * a mandatory short lede, including the character name, nicknames, gender, species, affiliation and first appearance. References and notes may be required. * a Description paragraph, succinctly presenting the physical chracteristics of the character. References are required. * a Biography description, presenting a succinct biography of the character. It can be quite lenghty and is to be chronologically ordered. Mentions of books or stories are not mandatory, but references are required. Either description or biography may be omitted if there is not enough information exists and the other paragraph is present. * a number of non mandatory paragraphs about Possessions, Spells, physical or magical characteristics. They may be divided in titled subparagraphs, and references are required. * a mandatory In the series paragraph. Each novel/story's information is to be presented in its own subparagraph. References are required. * a non mandatory trivia section. References, if available, should be to outside sources. * a Notes section, if needed. * a References section, almost always needed. * a See also section, with links to pages relevant but not previously piped. * an External links section, with links to external pages relevant to the topic. Each page should be self-contained. Mandatory categorizations is one of: Main characters, Recurring characters, Minor characters, Mentioned characters. Other pages, such as Nevernever, Magic, Wizard, describe what is known about any other subject, and typically include: * a mandatory short lede, broaching the topic. References and notes may be required. * a Description paragraph, presenting the topic. Might be lengthy, mentions of books or stories are not mandatory, and references are required. * a biography description, presenting a succinct biography of the character. It can be quite lenghty and is to be chronologically ordered. but references are required. Either description or biography may be omitted if there is not enough information exists and the other paragraph is present. * a number of non mandatory paragraphs about specific details, which may be divided in titled subparagraphs, and references are required. * a mandatory in the series paragraph. Each novel/story's information is to be presented in its own subparagraph. References are required. * a non mandatory trivia section. References, if available, should be to outside sources. * a Notes section, if needed. * a References section, almost always needed. * a See also section, with links to pages relevant but not previously piped. * an External links section, with links to external pages relevant to the topic. References and notes References Information added should always be referenced to their origin in the relevant book or story, as it should information coming from interviews, provided by publishers, etc. It is fairly simple to do so; the relevant piece is to be tagged in one of four forms: * for the first refrence to a novel, the tag XX book title, ch. YY is to be used. DF stands for Dresden files, XX is the serial number of the book, YY is the chapter number and XX book title is the title of book XX. So, Storm Front, ch. 01 is a reference to the first chapter of Storm Front * for the first reference to a story, the tag XX story title is to be used. XX is the capitalized acronym resulting from XX story title. So "DF-B" for Backup], and "DF-IMBT" for "It's My Birthday, Too". In the reference, titles of longer pieces, such as Aftermath are italicized, while shorter pieces, such as "Love Hurts", are in "quotation marks". * for the first reference to outside material, such as interviews, articles, movie clips, etc. the tag to source material" "short description" is to be used. ZZ is a two-letter indicative of the website name: "YT" for Youtube, "RD" for Reddit, etc, XXXX is a very short description of the information provided. * any further instance is to be referenced by its name: , , or . Reference tags appear in the article as an automatically assigned number, such as 1, 2, 3, etc., where they've been inserted. Their content is parsed and shown by the tag, which is to be inserted at the end of each article, in a paragraph of its own, named "References". References The reflist tag can be modified as , where n''' is the number of columns the references are divided in. It is often the last paragraph; "See also" and "External links" being the only paragraphs following it. Footnotes Footnotes are a variant of references, useful when it is necessary or useful to insert information, such as the numerous Chicago landmarks (i.e., the Field Museum of Natural History) used as locales for the series, and the many faeries based on their folklore counterparts (i.e. Erlking), which is not coming from the Dresden Files, but is needed to clarify the DF material. Most often such information is to be found on Wikipedia, but a suitable non-commercial websites, such as the Field Museum of Natural History, can be used. Wikipedia is referenced with a tag as follows Pagename - wikipedia; '''WP stands for wikipedia, while PN stands for a two or three-lettered aronym identifying the requested page. Websites other than wikipedia are referenced as follows url" "website name"; PN is a two or three-letter acronym indicating the site name. Like references, footnotes appear as numbered tags in the text where they're inserted, while their content is shown by the tag, to be inserted in a paragraph called "Notes", placed just before "References".